


I Serve At The Pleasure Of The President

by crystalkei



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, West Wing AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were supposed to go get something to eat but Bellamy really wants to nail that birthday greeting. </p><p> </p><p>(What if Bellamy was Sam and Clarke was Mallory?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Serve At The Pleasure Of The President

They met on Bellamy’s worst day. Or at least one of his weirdest. And contrary to your typical cocktail party stories, it was not cute in any way. It was mortifying.

 

After explaining most of the reasons his day was going badly he went in for the kill, hoping the honesty would get him the information he needed out of the volunteer art teacher who had called him a moron.

 

_“I hate my boss and it turns out, I accidentally slept with a prostitute last night, so will you just tell me which one of those kids is Abby Griffin’s daughter please.”_

 

_“Me.”_

 

But something about that encounter made the two of them friends. After the initial bout of _yikes_ wore off. Now it was common for her to stop in and annoy him at work. Throwing the ball against the glass, bringing him lunch when she’d been forced to eat lunch with her mother. Sitting on the couch in his office demanding he explain why he’d taken a position against public funding for the arts. (It was an opposition paper but he didn’t tell her that until the end of the day because it was more fun to argue with her.) When she moved to New York with the hockey player, he wasn’t sad. Just missed her a little. Then she came back. Recited lines President Jaha had spoke that he’d written. She said they made her weak. And she and the hockey player had split. (“That is just terrible. I really liked him,” he said with his finest sarcasm and she’d smiled.)

 

So now he was sitting on the couch in his office, a legal pad in one hand, a pen in the other, (his talent is somewhere in the building, it couldn't have gone far) and Clarke’s head was on his thigh. She had commandeered his winter coat as a blanket and was stretched out on the rest of the couch, dozing. It was two am. They were supposed to get something to eat but it hadn’t happened. He had work to do and she knew better than anyone else. 

  
She’d grown up like this. With the pressing matters of state dictating her schedule, be it supporting the president or the congresswoman, or some other official. Clarke told him once that her mother sat through a meeting with top DNC lobbyists while in labor. Clarke was nearly born in a Lincoln towncar on the 495.

 

“With great hope and exuberance we push for-” he stopped then repeated the line to himself again.

 

“ _With great hope_ , cut _exuberance_. You don’t have to oversell it,” she said without opening her eyes.

 

He looked down at her and considered for a moment. “You’re right. I’m getting too flowery.”

 

“You’re not paid by the word,” Clarke said before going quiet again, her breathing evening out until he knew she was sleeping again.

Bellamy continued to work, he wrote, erased, rewrote, said the words aloud. She’d offer a suggestion here and there. They did this sometimes. It was normal.

 

At three am Abby came into his office at full speed.

  
  
“The schedule changed and-” she paused when she noticed Clarke sleeping.

 

He was glad she hadn’t come in five minutes ago when he’d been taking a quick mental break to brush Clarke’s hair out of her face and watch her sleep like a creeper. They weren’t dating. Just good friends.

 

Bellamy gave Abby his full attention and tried to pretend that Clarke wasn’t in his lap.

 

She cleared her throat and glared before continuing, “ The President’s not going to meet the Daughters of the American Revolution. The event has been postponed so you’ve got time to work on the remarks. But you should go home and sleep because there’s a thing with China and we’re gonna need your best tomorrow.”

 

“Yes ma’am,” he said respectfully, knowing full well that he was not going to go home any time soon.

 

“And...” Abby started but never finished. She just looked from Bellamy to Clarke a few times as if to suggest her displeasure before she left.

 

He knew Clarke hadn’t slept through the encounter but as soon as her mother was out of view she lifted her middle finger into the air.

 

“Wow,” he said in mock awe. “You’re so brave to do that to her back.”

 

“Shut up,” Clarke muttered. “Why do you even work here? You hate her and Thelonious.”

 

“You think I should work for some Republican?” he asked dryly. “People that don’t think you exist?”

 

“Me? A pretty girl?”

 

“You, a woman who wants the right to control her own body, also bisexual,” he said plainly.

 

“I’m pretty, too.” Her lower lip jut out as she rolled from her side to her back to look up at him.

 

“You are,” he agreed with a nod.

 

“Republicans would love you though. Son of an immigrant, the good kind of immigrant, that lifted himself up by his bootstraps to attend Harvard law school! God, you’re a Republican’s wet dream.”

 

“Sure, but I love big government, it’s a major con on their list.”

 

Clarke looked down and Bellamy tried to look at his pad instead of gazing at her like some lovesick puppy.

 

“It was idealism, wasn’t it?” she asked with her eyes back on him. “Mom ran Thelonious’ campaign on more idealism than Woodrow Wilson.”

 

“I love it when you talk history. It’s very sexy.” Avoiding the question was easier than answering it. Flirting was a great way to avoid the question.

 

“Woodrow Wilson was the sexiest,” Clarke replied easily before she sat up.

 

Bellamy worried she might leave. Yes, it was the middle of the night, yes they both had to be to work in a few hours (though he had the advantage of just sleeping on his couch instead of going home) but he didn’t want her to leave yet so he actually circled back around to the question he was trying to avoid. Well, sort of.

 

“Why are you always hanging out in my office? You don’t even like me.”

 

She shrugged. “My day job is boring as fuck. My volunteer work, that I enjoy, is only four hours a week and you’re easily riled up into arguments so you’re more fun than Netflix.”

 

“Your firm pays you a shit ton of money,” Bellamy offered.

 

“Still hate my job.”

 

“What do you want to do?”

 

“I hate my mom,” she said as though that explained everything.

 

“Who doesn’t?”

 

“But I kinda think,” she hesitated and Bellamy figured it out.

 

“You would be so good at her job.” Bellamy smiled wide. “Chief of Staff? I’ve seen your calendar and organizational skills. You’d kill at that position.”

 

“Guess I’ll just hang around until she dies from a heart attack and they need somebody in a pinch.”

 

Clarke took a deep breath, seeming to move on from the topic. She stood up and Bellamy was about to suggest he walk her to her car but she reached for his hand.

 

“Where are we going?” he asked as he took her hand and stood up.

 

“To the mess for pie. You’ll never find your talent on a belly full of day old coffee and idealism,” she explained.

 

“I think at this point, if the mess is open, they’re serving eggs not pie,” Bellamy said.

 

“As long as you’re not one of those people who eats ketchup on your eggs, we’ll be fine.”

 

Bellamy let her drag him out of the office, walking down the hall towards the mess.

 

“Read me what you’ve got again, I like to hear you speak more than Jaha.”

 

“My words make you swoon, don’t they?” he asked emboldened by the way she was still holding his hand as they walked.

 

“It’s been known to happen, don’t change the subject though, read me what you’ve got.”

 

\--

 

Later that year, in typical Bellamy ‘fuck up’ Blake fashion he made a promise to a widow. A democrat hadn’t won in the California 47th in years. He was just trying to show some compassion.

 

When he confessed to Clarke on election day she’d laughed at him. “God, you’re a mess,” she’d said.

 

“Help me get out of this, please,” he’d begged.

She pulled out a binder full of polling data and campaign slogan ideas. And at least 37 sketches of a potential logo. It shouldn’t have been hot. But it was very hot.

 

“I thought you’d never ask. Let’s go to Orange County.”

 

He lost that race.

  
But they bought a house in Orange County and he won the next one.


End file.
